Rest awhile, on your homeward march, at the small bridge near Olevano where the road takes a turn. A few hundred yards up the glen on your left is a fountain whose waters are renowned for their purity; the bridge itself is not a favourite spot after sunset; it is haunted by a most malignant spectre. That adds considerably, in my eyes, to the charm of the place. Besides, here stands an elder tree now in full flower. What recollections does that scent evoke! What hints of summer, after rain! A venerable tree, old as the hills; that last syllable tells its tale--you may read it in the Sanscrit. A man-loving tree; seldom one sees an elder by itself, away from human habitations, in the jungle. I have done so; but in that particular jungle, buried beneath the soil, were the ruins of old houses. When did it begin to attach itself to the works of man, to walls and buildings? And why? Does it derive peculiar sustenance from the lime of the masonry? I think not, for it grows in lands where lime is rare, and in the shadow of log-huts. It seeks shelter from the wind for its frail stalks and leaves, that shrivel wondrously when the plant is set in exposed situations. The Sabine mountains are full of elders. They use the berries to colour the wine. A German writer, R. Voss, wove their fragrance into a kind of Leit-motif for one of his local novels. I met him once by accident, and am not anxious to meet him again. A sacerdotal and flabbily pompous old man--straightway my opinion of his books, never very high, fell to zero, and has there remained. He knew these regions well, and doubtless sojourned at one time or another at yonder caravanserai-hotel, abandoned of late, but then filled with a crowd of noisy enthusiasts who have since been sacrificed to the war-god. Doubtless he drank wine with them on that terrace overlooking the brown houses of Olevano, though I question whether he then paid as much as they are now charging me; doubtless he rejoiced to see that stately array of white lilies fronting the landscape, though I question whether he derived more pleasure from them than I do.... While at Bellegra, this afternoon, I gazed landwards to where, in the Abruzzi region, the peaks are still shrouded in snow.